


The World That Should Not Be

by phoenixyfriend



Series: Blame Tumblr Prompts [27]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Complete, Galra Empire, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 09:11:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12165912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: The Galra came. They saw. They conquered.Four teenagers weren't quite ready to roll over and wait for the next kick, though.---Written for the tumblr prompt: “Earth was conquered before Shiro’s return."





	The World That Should Not Be

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be five headcanons and ended up being a fic because I clearly have expert self-control.

Remember how Keith interpreted the carvings in Blue’s cave to find the exact date Shiro showed up and brought the team together? Well, this AU has the carvings pointing to the date the Galra first invade.

\---

Pidge, Lance, and Hunk are already on a team by the time the Galra showed up. Pidge picks up the signals that the Galra were coming long before even the Garrison does.

Due a series of mishaps that may have led to a happier story in another world, the three of them are together and waiting when the first of the ships arrive. They escape with a boy that's got bags under his eyes, a knife in his hands, and the stars in his soul, after Lance notices, recognizes, and proceeds to pick a fight with him.

(No matter how much you don’t understand, or recognize, a guy, you’re still going to offer him and his buddies a ride on your hoverbike to your desert shack when  _aliens show up to make your old school go boom_.)

Blue's hoping for a full team, so she doesn’t open up for Lance yet, when Keith takes them out to her cave. She hopes and hopes and hopes, but… not yet.

Pidge and Hunk, working together, manage to build a device that shields the shack from the Galra. It’s not  _quite_  the best thing, but it works. The barely pay attention to random patches of desert with only a handful of heat signatures that could easily be mistaken for coyotes or pronghorns, so it works.

Despite being on Earth, the kids still can’t contact their families, because they don’t know who’s safe and who isn’t. Pidge manages to hack the internet from Keith’s shack without getting eyes on them, but the best she can do is confirm that they’re safe. Paying ridiculously high taxes as the Galra forcibly convert the entire economy to GAC and start draining the planet of resources, but… mostly safe.

Shiro still doesn’t show.

They start venturing back out into the nearest town. It’s drabber, emptier, sadder… but it’s still standing. They take on fake names, and if anyone recognizes them, they don’t mention it. They get jobs waiting tables or washing dishes, just enough to scrape by and get food, and get paid under the table by adults who recognize what’s going on.

Pidge always knows when the Galra are on their way in, has tracking systems, and does her best to keep them under the radar.

“We’re going to have to register with the Galra,” she says one day, eyes tired. “They’re keeping track of who’s who so they can make sure everyone pays their taxes to the empire. I can’t hide us forever, not when we have to keep going into town for food and supplies.”

Hunk and Pidge steal scraps of Galra tech, figure it out and use it to keep them hidden, keep them quiet, keep them from getting noticed as strong young bodies and drafted to work for the Empire.

They stretch it out for as long as they can. They can all feel the pulling from Blue at this point, Lance strongest of all, but they don’t kn–-

Shiro comes.

Shiro comes in a blaze of fire and metal scrapwork, leaves his pod raging and capable and so very, very angry that he couldn’t save his planet. He was just one man, yes, but he was the first, the only, he  _should have done so–_

They get him out.

They get him out, but barely. They scrape by, with Pidge’s cobbled-together invisibility and Hunk’s habit of welding Galra tech to Keith’s bike to enhance it and Lance’s panicked theft and  _perfect aim_  of a guard’s Empire-Issued blaster and Keith’s reckless, lucky piloting and–

They get him out.

They take him to the shack, and talk. The Galra will be here soon, because all the laying low in the world won’t keep the five of them hidden now. Their tech isn’t advanced enough, and they just don’t have the resources, not now and maybe not ever.

“The lion,” Lance says. “She’s… she’s calling to me.”

“She?” Keith asks.

Shiro doesn’t know what’s going on, just mentions Voltron and then starts talking about how he should have left sooner, should have broken out faster, should have  _done something_  to warn the planet before the Galra arrived.

There’s a knock on the door, and their hearts plummet, and Lance opens the door and freezes and  _stares_ when he sees Iverson on the other side.

“I can buy you an hour and a half at most. Probably less.”

“Sir…”

“Four cadets and an MIA officer aren’t the only chance the Earth has, but something tells me you’re the best. I’m too old to be fighting this war, but you know we’ve got people on the ground that’ll be fighting this. Whatever Shirogane knows,  _whoever_ he knows that might be able to salvage this…”

“Voltron,” Shiro says.

“The lion,” Lance breathes.

“…go,” Iverson grunts. “That’s an order.”

They hop on the hoverbike, follow the nebulous pull from Blue that Hunk and Pidge once tracked with jury-rigged tech all those months ago. They urge the bike faster and faster, glancing over shoulders and praying when they see the Galra ships come down low and fast.

They make it to Blue, and ask Shiro to knock. She hasn’t let anyone else in, so maybe it’s him?

_No._

Keith bangs on the forcefield, yells about how people are dying, their planet is  _dying_ , doesn’t she  _care about anything?_

Lance pulls him away, suggests knocking, and–

It works.

Oh, but it works.

 _He is hers, he has always been hers, and she will choose him until she has no other choice but to let him go, he found their missing piece, she is so very proud of him, so very proud of_ all _of them and_

The barrier goes down.

They climb in, subdued but hopeful and wary and wondering if this might just save them.

They burst through the rocks, aim for the skies, and  _fly._

And when they reach the edge of the system, when they enter the wormhole, when they land in front of a castle from a fairytale and wake a princess from her ten thousand years of slumber, they know what they want.

 _Help us save our home_.

And when Allura hears those words, and remembers how she could not save her own, she has her answer.

_Of course._

**Author's Note:**

> The post that caused this: http://phoenixyfriend.tumblr.com/post/165643363680
> 
> I won't be continuing this.


End file.
